My Life as a Busted-Up Basketball Backboard Page 2

  “Well?” Mr. Slicko asked, motioning for the cameraman to move in for a nice, tight closeup.

  Finally, I had it. Something incredibly profound, something deeply important. “I just want to take this opportunity to say . . .”

  “Yes,” he said, coaxing me on with an encouraging grin. “Don’t be shy.”

  “Well . . .”

  “Go ahead, Willard.”

  “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  It took a little doing, but I finally convinced them to let me go into the bathroom alone (though I wouldn’t be surprised if they got some good sound effects of the toilet flushing). Anyway, when I stepped back into the room, the TV crew was still standing there taping.

  Normally, I get dressed before going downstairs to eat breakfast. Call me shy, but for some reason I didn’t feel like stripping in front of fifty million households. Then there was the matter of my Star Wars underwear. (Hey, at least I got rid of those Barney ones.)

  So, instead of changing clothes, I decided to head downstairs first. And, even though I walked into the kitchen several minutes earlier than normal, my entire family was up and waiting.

  “Oh, Wallace,” Mom said, cranking up a perma-grin smile for the camera. “You brought your friends. What a surprise.” (The fact that she was wearing her best evening gown and already had been to the beauty parlor made me wonder exactly how surprised she really was.) “Here, dear, sweet, wonderful son, let me pour that breakfast cereal in the bowl for you.”

  At first, I thought she was laying it on a bit thick, until my older twin brothers, Burt and Brock, got into the act.

  “Hey, Wally,” Burt said, while carefully flexing his biceps for all the babes out in TV land to see, “let me pour some milk on that cereal for you.”

  “Hey, Wally,” Brock said, while carefully pulling his hair down in his eyes for that sexy movie-star look, “let me lift that heavy old spoon up to your mouth for you.”

  Needless to say, it was weird to have my older brothers make such a fuss over me. (Normally, I’m lucky if they even remember my name.) But that was nothing compared to the kindness and consideration of my little sister, Carrie.

  “Guess what, Wally?” she said, scooting up beside me and batting her baby blues at the TV camera.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I’ve decided not to cook for a whole month.”

  Wow! Talk about thoughtful! Talk about caring! Was there no end to their kindness?

  And then, topping it off, there was Dad. To be fair, the guy really isn’t much of a morning person. In fact, on a good day we’re lucky to get a grunt out of him. But today . . . well, today he actually looked up from his morning paper and spoke. It really wasn’t much, but for Dad it was like the Gettysburg Address . . .

  “Mornin’,” he grumbled.

  Talk about a miracle! For a moment we all stared at him in speechless awe. And then, doing our best to appear as the perfect, loving family, we gave the perfect, loving answer in perfect, loving unison:

  “Good morning, Father Dear.”

  Talk about perfection. Talk about the ideal family. Talk about making your stomach turn.

  The rest of the breakfast went pretty well . . . except for the part of my spilling milk (twice), accidentally tipping over the cereal bowl (three times), and trying to head back upstairs (which I fell down more times than I could count).

  “All right,” Mr. Slicko groaned on my fifth—or was it my seventh?— fall. “We’d better go to commercial. Go to commercial, NOW!”

  Lovely Assistant Doris spoke into her headset, and they turned off the lights and camera.

  “So, how am I doing?” I asked, looking up from the bottom of the stairs.

  He shook his head. “We’ve got to think up another angle. We’re trying to make you the most popular kid in the world, not the most pathetic.” “Hey”—I shrugged as I struggled back to my feet—“you said you wanted somebody who was a klutz.”

  “Yes,” he replied, nodding, “you’ve certainly not disappointed us in that department. Listen, during the commercial break, go upstairs and get ready for school. We’ll meet you outside on the porch. By then I’ll figure out some way to make you look like a hero.”

  And, believe it or not, that’s exactly what he did . . .

  Ten minutes later, as I stepped onto the front porch, the TV lights blazed on and the camera began rolling.

  “All right,” Mr. Slicko whispered into his walkie-talkie. “Signal the driver.”

  Before I even started down the steps, a flashy red convertible squealed around the corner. It swerved back and forth, wildly out of control. As it approached, I could see the driver. He was a man made up to look like an old woman—complete with a very bad-fitting dress and an even worse-fitting wig. “Help me! Oh, help me!” he/she screamed. “Oh, my! Oh, my! Who can possibly save me?”

  “Okay, Willard,” Mr. Slicko whispered.

  “That’s Wally,” I whispered back.

  “Whatever. The point is, that’s your cue. Get out there and save her!”

  All I could do was stare at him. Don’t get me wrong: I have nothing against saving little old ladies in runaway sports cars (even if they happen to be men), but I also have this thing about wanting to live . . . I was about to point this out to Mr. Slicko when suddenly another person burst out of the bushes beside me. And if that wasn’t weird enough, he looked exactly like me! It was amazing—the same shirt and pants, the same blond hair, and, of course, the same nerdy glasses.

  Poor guy.

  I was going to tell him how sorry I was about his appearance, or at least write him a nice sympathy card, but it didn’t look like he had the time. Instead, he raced across the lawn and right out into the street.

  “Oh, my! Oh, my! Is that the great Willard McDorkel?” the pretend man/woman screamed from the car.

  “Yes,” the photocopy version of me shouted. “Do not fear, it is I!”

  And then, before anybody could pass out awards for the world’s worst acting, Photocopy Boy leaped onto the passing car, crawled into the driver’s seat, and brought the vehicle to a screeching halt. “Oh, Willard! Oh, Willard! You have saved my life!” the man/woman in the wig cried. “How can I ever repay you?”

  “No problem,” Photocopy Boy answered. “It’s all in a day’s work. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to stop a runaway freight train before heading off to school.”

  “And cut!” Mr. Slicko cried. “Great, let’s go to another commercial.”

  The TV lights went off and the crew began to applaud. Soon, both actors climbed out of the car and gave polite little bows.

  “Nice work, Willard.” Mr. Slicko turned to me, grinning. “Soon, you’ll be everyone’s hero.”

  “But . . . ,” I sputtered, “that wasn’t me.”

  “Exactly. That was your stunt double. From now on, he’ll be doing all your dangerous stunts.”

  “You mean like walking up the stairs without falling down, or chewing gum without spraining my jaw?”

  “Yes,” he said, nodding, “but that’s just for starters. Soon you’ll be pulling people out of burning buildings, saving passengers from sinking ocean liners, and convincing mothers not to fix fried liver—even when it’s on sale.”

  “But I can’t do that kind of stuff!” I objected.

  “Of course you can’t, but your stunt double can.” Mr. Slicko flashed me another grin, the one I was liking less and less. “And that will be our little secret. Only you and the TV crew will know the real truth.”

  I frowned. “But . . .”

  “Listen, do you want to be popular or not?”

  “Yes, of course I do.”

  “Then just leave everything to me.”

  I swallowed hard and nodded. Already I suspected things were going to get a little worse before they got better. Unfortunately, I should have suspected that my suspecting was a little suspicious.

  Translation: Things were not going to get a little worse . . . they were going to ge
t a lot worse.

  Chapter 3

  On the Ball (or under it . . . )

  The good news was that they didn’t let Mr. Slicko and his TV crew tape any of my life inside the classroom. The bad news was that there was plenty of my life outside the classroom. And, unfortunately, Mr. Slicko had just gotten me more . . .

  “Hey, Wally?” It was Wall Street, my best friend even if she is a girl. She joined me as I headed down the hall to the school’s gym. “Where you going?”

  “Basketball practice,” I groaned.

  “Basketball practice? You don’t know anything about basketball.”

  “Tell me about it,” I sighed. “But Ricko Slicko says in order to be popular I have to also become an athlete.”

  “An athlete!” She burst out laughing. “You . . .” (that was all she could get out before dropping to her knees in hysterics) “. . . become . . .” (by now she was laughing so hard she could barely catch her breath) “. . . an athlete!”

  I waited patiently as she rolled around on the floor for half an hour, laughing her head off. (Hey, what good is it having friends if they can’t totally humiliate you?)

  When she was finally done, she rose to her feet, brushed herself off, and continued. “Well, before you become . . .” (and then she broke out laughing again).

  I glanced at my watch patiently. “Listen,” I said, “I’d love to continue this humiliation, but Coach Kilroy is waiting for me.”

  “All right, all right,” she said, finally catching her breath. “Where was I? Oh yeah. Before you go into the gym and get yourself killed, I need a favor.”

  “What is it this time?” I asked. “You want to sell me more shares in your Automatic Thumb Sucking machine?”

  “Hey, that would have worked if they’d have let babies write checks or call in credit card orders.” “So, if that’s not it,” I said, “then you probably want me to buy more samples from your famous Toenail Clippings of the World collection.”

  “Don’t be silly . . . though I did just get a new shipment in from the Back Street Boys.”

  The offer was tempting, but I shook my head.

  “Actually, what I need,” she said, “is your official endorsement of this.” She dug into her backpack and pulled out a four-inch plastic doll with blond hair and cracked glasses. One that looked strangely familiar.

  “Don’t tell me,” I said.

  “That’s right,” she said with a grin. “It’s the new Crash ’n Burn Wally action figure.”

  “Oh, brother,” I groaned.

  “No, listen,” she said. “You just wind it up like this.” She gave it a quick wind. “Set it down on the ground, like this.” She set it down on the floor. “And step back,” she said as she released the little toy. In 1.3 seconds it ran into the nearest wall and exploded into a giant fireball.

  “Cool?” she asked, waving the smoke out of her face.

  I coughed and answered, “Maybe a little extreme for the younger crowd.”

  “Not if they’ve read your books.”

  I had to nod. When she’s right, she’s right. “What’s my take?” I asked.

  “The usual. I get one hundred percent of the profit, and I give you a whole zero percent.”

  In case you forgot, Wall Street’s whole purpose in life is to make her first million by the time she’s fourteen. And so far she’d been making most of it off me. So, without a moment’s hesitation, I stuck out my hand, shook hers, and cried, “Deal!” (Hey, I’m a writer, not a businessman.)

  “McDoogle! Get your rear in here!” It was the delicate voice of Coach Kilroy bellowing from the gym.

  “On my way!” I shouted. “Gotta go,” I said to Wall Street.

  She nodded. “Oh, and Wally?”

  I turned back to her.

  “If you should die while becoming famous . . .” “Yes?” I said, waiting for some thoughtful, sensitive last word.

  “Can I have first dibs on your toenail clippings?” “Sure,” I said. “What are friends for.”

  “McDoogle!”

  “Coming!”

  I’m not entirely sure why Coach Kilroy had such a grudge against me. It might have something to do with my last misadventure—the one where I got him thrown into jail and nearly destroyed the world in the process. (I tell you, some people can be so touchy sometimes.) Anyway, somehow Mr. Slicko managed to talk Coach into letting me practice with our school’s basketball team, the Middletown Clams. Some teams have tigers or bears or eagles for their mascots. We’ve got clams. Don’t ask me why, just lucky I guess. And don’t even get me started on those two guys who have to dress up like clamshell halves every game.

  Anyhow, in a matter of minutes I was suited up and out on the floor with the guys. It was pretty exciting and, of course, majorly painful. I’ll save you all the gory details and just cut to the headlines. First, we had the world-famous:

  LAY-UP DRILLS

  A piece of cake. Someone passes you the ball, you leap into the air, and slam-dunk it into the basket. No problem—well, except for the part of catching the ball, leaping into the air, and slam-dunking it. Actually, I didn’t even get as far as the leaping and dunking. I was still working on the catching.

  K-THWACK

  K-FALL

  K-unconscious

  The K-THWACK was the ball bouncing off my chest at supersonic speed.

  “Come on, McDoogle,” Coach Kilroy shouted. “You’re supposed to catch the thing!”

  The K-FALL was me staggering under the impact of the ball, which would lead us to the third and most important sound effect . . . K-unconscious (which really isn’t a sound effect at all, but me cracking my head on the floor and suddenly deciding to pass out).

  “Come on, McDoogle, this is no time to rest! Quit slacking! Get on your feet! Be a man!”

  Actually, being a man was the least of my priorities. Right now, all I wanted to do was be alive . . . until Coach dragged me over to the next drill, which was:

  DRIBBLE DRILLS

  “Okay men,” Coach barked. “I want you to dribble the ball fifty times with your right hand, then fifty with your left, then fifty with your right, then fifty with your left.”

  No problem. Anybody could do that. (Well maybe anybody else’s body, but not this body.)

  K-DROP! bounce . . . bounce . . . bounce

  “No, McDoogle! You don’t drop the ball. You slam it down hard enough to make it bounce back up!” “Oh, right.” I giggled nervously. I picked up the ball and tried again. This time I threw it down as hard as I could.

  K-SLAM

  It was an impressive display of strength, and I was pretty pleased . . . well, except for the part where it hit my foot

  K-BOING

  bounced wildly off to the side and

  K-RASH

  hit the fire alarm, which

  RINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG . . .

  went off.

  Which, of course, set Coach Kilroy off. “McDOOGLE!”

  Naturally, we all had to traipse outside and stand in the freezing rain until the fire department came to tell us it was okay to go back inside, which probably explains why nobody was too concerned when we returned to the drill and I

  K-BOUNCE

  slammed the ball down, missing my foot (a round of applause, please), but forgot to move my face out of the way when it came back up. This, of course, would explain the

  K-RACK

  rebreaking of my glasses, not to mention the

  K-LATTER, K-LATTER, K-LATTER,

  which is the sound your front teeth make when they are knocked out and fall onto a basketball court.

  “McDOOGLE!”

  “Sorrwy,” I mumbled, “dwidn’t meam dood.” I dropped to my knees and scooped my teeth into the container my orthodontist had given me for just such occasions.

  And finally, what basketball practice would be complete without the ever-popular and even more painful:

  STAIR DRILL

  This is where you run up and down the three flights
of stairs inside the school.

  “To build up those leg muscles and teach you endurance!” Coach Kilroy shouted. Of course, in my case, it was to wheeze my lungs out and teach me more humiliation.

  The wheezing my lungs out, you can understand. It’s not that I’m in bad shape, it’s just that I work up a sweat brushing my teeth. (Hey, those toothbrushes can get heavy.)

  Then, of course, there was the matter of my humiliation. It wasn’t the twenty minutes it took to get up to the top of those three flights that was rough. It was when I got to that last step, my foot slipped, and I tumbled backward that things got a little embarrassing.

  Even that wouldn’t have been so bad if the rest of the team wasn’t behind me on their fiftieth or sixtieth lap. Somehow, I managed to hit all of them, sending us tumbling down the three stories of stairs until we landed in a giant, tangled heap at the very bottom.

  It was a beautiful feat of clumsiness . . . one human bowling ball knocking down an entire team of human bowling pins. A perfect strike in every sense of the word. But apparently Coach wasn’t much of a bowling fan:

  “Get away from my boys!” he screamed. “Get away from my team! Get away from my gym! Get out! Get out! Get out!”

  As someone with above-average communication skills, it was my impression that Coach didn’t exactly want me around. So, taking the subtle hint, I dragged my beaten and battered body to the showers. I had no idea how painful becoming popular could be.

  I got out, toweled off, and dressed. I pushed open the door and had barely stepped outside before I ran into Mr. Slicko, who was waiting for me with the rest of the TV crew. This time, however, there were some additional people:

  “Willard? Willard McDorkel?”

  I turned to see three girls running toward me. They were about my age, maybe a little younger. One was on a pair of crutches.

  “Would you please sign this?” Girl One asked breathlessly as she shoved a piece of paper at me. “What for?” I said.

  “What for?” she asked. She turned to her friends and sighed dreamily. “He asked what for.”